A Dallas real estate project that started with the preservation of a historic hospital will soon get another landmark building.

Crow Family Holdings began its Old Parkland development in 2005 when it restored the century-old Parkland Hospital at Maple and Oak Lawn avenues.

Since then, the investment firm has built two more complementary buildings, and a third office is going up for TRT Holdings.

But the next phase of development will be the most impressive yet for the 9.5-acre Oak Lawn campus.

Already under construction at the corner of Oak Lawn and the Dallas North Tollway, the three-building complex of classical buildings will be a grand addition to the Crow’s one-of-a-kind development.

At first, Crow Family Holdings was just planning to restore the Old Parkland Hospital, one of the state’s oldest surviving medical buildings.

Another developer was going to build workaday apartments on the surrounding land, which was purchased from Dallas County.

“But when we decided to put our offices here, we decided there was a better use for it,” CEO Harlan Crow said.

The Crow family investment company moved its operations in 2008 from Uptown into the restored hospital building.

Since then, the company has developed a series of office buildings that are compatible with the historic medical building.

The largest building on the campus is under construction on Maple Avenue for Omni Hotels & Resorts’ owner TRT Holdings. The six-story, $56 million building will open late this year at 4001 Maple Ave.

“The TRT building is pretty big,” Crow said. “Our plan with this was to keep the buildings low and small.

“We are trying to stay with our architectural idea, but not precisely,” he said. “We want the buildings to have a kinship.”

The next phase of development will be a trio of four and six-story brick buildings joined by an arcade. The largest central building will have a high domed roof and is patterned after Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia.

Dallas’ Beck Group and Charlottesville, Va.-based architect Dalgliesh Glipin Paxton Architects designed the three buildings.

The 150,000-square-foot complex will be one of the costliest office developments in North Texas atalmost twice the average expense.

“Yes, the costs are high — $450 per square foot,” Crow said. “It’s probably more than $650 if you add the land and the interior finishes.

“If we get a 3 percent return out of this, we will be doing fine,” he said. “Eventually it will be a very valuable asset.”

Larry Good, a founding principal with Dallas architects Good Fulton & Farrell, said the quality and detail that is going into the development is unmatched by other project in North Texas.

“I really haven’t ever seen anything else like it,” said Good, who worked on the original hospital building renovation and two of the adjoining buildings on the campus.

“They are treating this as someone would treat their home, which explains why they are so focused on doing it right.

“It’s not an economically motivated project,” he said. “It’s an asset they will own for a long time and they are handling it lovingly.”

Crow Family Holdings has located artworks throughout the Old Parkland campus, and the new buildings will have a 45-foot-tall monument out front that is being created in Scotland.

“The new entry off of Oak Lawn will be very special,” said Cole Rothwell with Crow Family Holdings, who is overseeing the leasing of the buildings. “You will drive under an archway to enter the campus.

“And the plaza out in front will have a lot of sculpture.”

More than 300 parking spaces will be underneath the plaza and buildings.

Along with office space, the project will include dining facilities, a conference center and other public space. Rooftop gardens will link the three buildings. The office space in the completed Old Parkland campus buildings is almost fully leased to a variety of small tenants averaging just 3,000 square feet.

“Mostly, it’s family investment offices and some are retired people,” Crow said. “We have some small hedge funds.

“The rates are pretty high — in the high $40s per square foot,” he said. “We know that’s above market, but our hope is it’s the appeal of our amenities that attracts our tenants.”

By comparison, office rents in Dallas’ Uptown district average about $30 per square foot.

But those rates don’t include the historic tree-lined campus with classical buildings and art.

“We want people who come here to think this has been built over time,” Crow said. “Things that happen organically have a better feel about them.”

The Old Parkland development has brought a different feel to its stretch of Maple Avenue.

Crow Family Holdings has demolished some of the old commercial buildings along the strip and is making other additions to the neighborhood. It’s the investment partner in a 299-unit apartment development under way on Throckmorton Street just east of Maple.

“That’s just the first phase of a larger project,” Crow said. “We are doing a lot of work to clean up Maple Avenue.”

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